Pay television provider MultiChoice Kenya has increased prices of its monthly packages by up to Sh700, marking the fifth time in under three years of such increments as the firm seeks to arrest a dip in revenue amid stiff competition from alternative television services and pirated content.
The firm on Monday said that the DStv Premium package will go for Sh11,700 effective August 1, 2025 from the current Sh11,000 while customers on the Compact Plus package will pay Sh7,300 from Sh6,800.
The company has however also reduced the pricing of its streaming service Showmax by between Sh50 and Sh100 per month.
The increase on the cost of the traditional packages marks the firm’s latest push to drive revenues at a time when subscription revenues for MultiChoice in all its markets dropped 27 percent in the year to March 2025.
MultiChoice is facing an onslaught from a combination of piracy, rise of cheaper online streaming and free to air television services and tough economic times that are pushing some subscribers away from pay television.
Subscription revenues that MultiChoice made in the Kenyan market, when expressed as a share of the total subscription revenues dipped to seven percent in the year to March 2025 from eight percent a year earlier.
“This change is part of MultiChoice’s annual subscription review, which is conducted with great care to ensure customers receive the best of both local and international content. The company aims to keep these adjustments sustainable while continuing to provide quality services to its customers,” MultiChoice said in a statement on Monday.
Subscribers on the Compact package will pay Sh300 more with the new price increasing to Sh4,200 while those on the Family package will pay Sh2,250 from the current Sh2,100.
The Sh750 for the Lite package remains unchanged. MultiChoice Kenya also introduced a new package dubbed Xtra View that will cost Sh1,700.
MultiChoice Kenya had increased the prices by up to Sh500 from November 1, 2024. It had also increased prices from April 1, 2024 and also April 1 and August 1 (both in 2023).
Pay television recently admitted to the threat that it is facing from alternative television services, in what further puts to question its decision to increase the price of its packages.
But the latest increase is likely to hit the market of MultiChoice Kenya in a year when the share of subscription revenue from Kenya to its global market marginally dipped amid tough economic times and rise of “FTA, notably in news and local content, remains a strong competitor for viewership and advertising revenue in many markets, including South Africa, Kenya, Ghana and Ethiopia,” MultiChoice noted in its annual report for the year that ended March 2025.
The firm also noted that Subscription Video on Demand (SVOD) services like ViuSasa are further eating into its market in Kenya.
